THE QUESTION
"If Piaget and Vygotsky are not where the field is anymore, then where it the field?
INTRODUCTION
Terms like "ZPD," "stage theory" and "constructivism," "equilibration," and "social constructivism" get bantered around in discussions of learning and design. It is important to remember that all ideas are subject to interpretation. Think of it like a theoretical yard sale, where people pick through the "stuff" or constructs that form the theoretical framework, taking what they like and leaving what they don't. Anyone who has studied Piagetian scriptures knows that the texts were written in French, and are highly theoretical. For me, the theoretical frameworks provided by folks like Skinner, Piaget and Vygotsky provided a great lens through which to view children in both informal and formal learning settings, but it is important to remember that even these guys pulled their ideas from others. So any theory is always emerging. While I have tried to read a few translated books by Piaget (try "The Grasp of Consciousness" if you a thriller), I am not a Piagetian or Vygotskian scholar by any stretch. If you're a student of human development like me, the best strategy is to (a) learn as much as you can about each of the grand theories, especially Skinner, Piaget, Bruner, Kohlberg, Gardner, and then (b) start child watching to apply the theories to the real world. That's how it all starts to make sense. If you're lucky enough to have your own children or grand children, nothing can compare to the joy of watching them grow, or as Piaget would probably say, develop. In this spirit, let us begin.
THE DISCUSSION
This started at Dust or Magic when I called something "formal operational" to describe the attributes of an interface. Erik Strommen aptly noted "Warren needs a tune-up," a fact that I certainly won't dispute, especially when these theories are applied to today's interactive media. So here's the start of a string of emails between Erik, Debra Leiberman and myself. (note: you might want to start backwards, as the more recent posts listed first).
Hi Warren, Debra, Jim, I think JumpStart Kindergarten (JSK) is a great place to start for this discussion.
ERIK WRITES
Warren - You are right to praise JSK but I feel your reasons are wrong. If you look at JSK's content design, it is all trial-and-error activities (i.e. more Associationism), just with better differential feedback. The learning model is still the same old model that says repeated-trials lead to eventual mastery through practice. The product does not reflect the ZPD or scaffolding. Remember, Vygotsky asserted that the ZPD was a specific point in development. It was the point where a child could (with assistance) succeed on a task at a level higher than they could unaided. Vygotsky's notion was that learning assistance at this point would have an extra effect (i.e. could rapidly lead to new mastery) than assistance rendered when the kid was not in the ZPD.
The assertion of the ZPD was meant to make two points for his theory
1) It was an explicit rejection of the general stage model of Piaget, since if the ZPD was real then task mastery was not ruled by general cognitive structures at all;
2) It was meant to demonstrate the importance of SOCIAL ASSISTANCE by a more experienced learner. (EXAMPLE: A kid can add two single digit numbers (say, 3+7, etc. but with assistance from a more experienced learner can also solve problems such as 3+7+8). The experienced learner "scaffolds" or supports the learner by taking on part of the task (say remembering partial sums.)
Vygotsky's entire model is based on the (wrong) assumption that all consciousness and cognition is shaped by social interactions. We now know that this is incorrect, and that many learning domains actually appear to have innate structures to them that kids seem to be born with, and that contours of their learning in these domains are each unique and domain-specific. Social interventions appear to do little to change these.
As I mentioned before, the research on the ZPD has led to the rejection of the idea itself. There do not appear to be "critical periods" in learning, at least not like a ZPD.
And going back to JSK, the feedback that the tasks give is NOT scaffolding. Scaffolding was theorized to be a dynamic social process, not simply the giving of feedback. (See my example above.) As with the ZPD, research on scaffolding has not yielded anything very useful educationally. The most productive and interesting stuff in this regard comes from the "scaffolding" that occurs in cooperative learning between kids. "Scaffolding" means that the two learners support one another by dividing up the cognitive demands or the learning task and sharing the load (again, see my example).
Jump Start Kindergarten does none of these things. It is a high-quality example of a trial-and-error association learning model. The reason I am harping on this issue is that if we can't discriminate between different learning models ourselves, we end up misrepresenting the learning value of these products - which diminishes not only our credibility but the credibility of claims made for the products.
I feel our industry has for years oversold the learning sophistication of our games in this way, and it hurts the credibility of ALL interactive learning efforts when we ascribe nobler processes than are true to products on the market. We need to start raising our standards and being more accurate about the actual learning models these products use if we want to see the field advance. That is why I urged you to reconsider your learning model and get this thread going. The field of learning is much advanced, and we need to catch up intellectually in order to support improved quality in learning products.
Erik
WARREN WRITES
The only real smart feature that I think JS Kindergarten did for the first time back in '94 was to remember what a child did (keep a history) in previous sessions -- (hence the sign in) -- and suggest activities that were not yet tried. So it really was a rather unsophisticated way of saying "you haven't tried the sorting game yet, how about it?" And the fact that most of the activities provide three challenges that a child can self select or in some cases automatically level make it secondarily noteworthy. Erik is correct in pointing out that there was no social assistance or prescriptive intelligence to the interface . But wouldn't it be amazing if this type of social assistance could be built into a title like Webkinz, or PiratesOnline.com, where live interaction has become commonplace? For example, in Pirates, the crew of a ship has to work together to sink the enemy ship -- one steers, the others man the guns. And experience and competence at both tasks count. I think that social (MMOG) gaming has created entirely new opportunities for social interactions; and now that we can Skype and type at the same time, one person can help another as easily as talking. I mentioned JSK because I feel that it is important to ground this discussion in real examples, rather than abstract notions of what a "serious game" might be, as so often happens in discussions of technology in education. It is easier to know what something is, when you know what it's not.
Erik: bringing the social aspect of the interactive element into the discussion is important. Am I correct that this might be a point in which to talk about Reeves and Nass?
In 1986, Clifford Nass and Byron Reeves conducted a
series of quantitative studies at Stanford's Department of
Communications in which the attributes of human/human and
computer/human interactions were directly associated. Using
both adults and children as a test population, they
recorded the behaviors of their human subjects using
different computer interfaces that varied in complexity and
graphic features. They concluded that humans treat
computers as real people and places, and provided examples
that their subjects were rude or polite to different
interfaces, treated computers with female narration
differently than male-voiced interfaces, and reacted to
large faces on a screen in a way that suggested that the
images could invade a person’s culturally mitigated body
space. They note "the human brain evolved over 200,000
years in a world in which only humans exhibited rich social
behaviors, and a world in which all perceived objects were
real physical objects, and now modern media engages old
brains." Their resulting book "The Media Equation" (See
Reeves and Nass, 1996; Gilbert, 1991) influenced the design
of commercial products such as Microsoft Bob (Microsoft,
1998) and the help wizard found in Microsoft Office, which
takes the form of a humanized talking paper clip. Here's the
"look inside this book " link at Amazon.com.
ERIK WRITES
I sure don't mind this turn in the discussion, but I DO want to get back to the specific problem of learning theory and technology design. 90% of the learning titles on the market today are little more than "electronic work books," based on simple associationism drill/practice learning models that are inconsistent with what research shows about the pattern of children's learning in virtually all content areas.
There, I'm done. :)
Now then,
You asked about a computer doing things human tutors would do in the zpg. My first response is that my understanding is that it has been very hard to pin down exactly what the zpg is. All of children's interactions seem to offer potential, and there don't seem to be "critical moments." It seems like a more continuous process. It is over a period of time that children learn to count, for example, where the child might says "one, two, three...." and the adult chimes in with "..four.." and then the child says "..five, six.." etc. with the parent intervening in a similar way but at different points over time, eventually fading away as the child gets better. This sort of thing is going on all the time, over time.
Zpg aside, there is still a huge amount of research that shows how social interactions influence learning for better or worse. I spent years designing and testing character interfaces for preschoolers and looking at computers and social interactions. I have done research that shows that children respond to interactive characters AS IF they are social agents, and used research about human interaction to guide the design of the characters. That social element provides a unique learning potential because of its motivational appeal. For the ActiMates characters (Barney, Arthur and DW, the Teletubbies) we exploited social conventions and used the character to direct the child's attention to specific content or to participate in onscreen action by singing or repeating along with onscreen characters.
I think we are getting to the point hardware-wise that more sophisticated interactions are technically possible.
Two thing that I can share from my reading in this area as well as my experience:
1) People can't help treating objects socially. People will talk back to a chirping dishwasher or beeping oven, knowing full well it won't answer. My theory is that this is an overextension of social interaction. What I find interesting is that people who talk to their appliances don't really expect them to answer. :)
1) if the goal is a social interaction, the features of the actual interface presented to the user, whether onscreen or hardware, must be very carefully considered. Facial expressions, body posture, tone of voice (if spoken, sentence structure if not), gender, politeness, and a variety of other seemingly neutral factors have surprising motivational effects when embedded in technology interactions.
2) The biggest key to successful interactive character social interactions is a thorough understanding of the interaction itself. What are the "two of you" (the user and the character interface) doing? Understanding the social demands of the specific task and having the character designed to follow the popular script gives a clear structure to the interaction, which is a benefit.
Interesting question!
E
DEBRA LEIBERMAN WRITES
Hi everyone --
Fascinating discussion! Nothing new to add to Erik's analysis of stages, but here are a few related questions.
There is a lot of talk about designing learning software to work within the zone of proximal development, to stimulate learning. Do any of you know examples of software that has been designed that way? One could argue that all leveled software does this to some extent, since it continuously challenges the child to stretch and grow cognitively. It can offer scaffolding if the child is not yet able to solve problems without guidance, and can remove the scaffolding in phases as the child gains cognitive skill. When the child masters a skill, the software then levels up and increases the challenge. With software and games and other forms of human-computer interaction we substitute computer-delivered messages and relationships for human-generated messages and relationships.
In what ways can an interactive mediated character or game or world (just human-computer interaction, with no other people participating) perform the same functions as another person, to encourage the child to solve challenging problems and to provide the assistance the child needs to succeed? Can the software assess the child's cognitive potential and the extent of the zone of proximal development, to provide challenges tailored to the individual child's capabilities? Is the child motivated to strive to learn and rehearse new cognitive skills with software? When (and for which types of children) will the child be more motivated by software than by another person, and vice versa? We see how motivating games can be. We need more research to understand the strengths and weaknesses of software and games as a motivator for problem solving that leads to cognitive development.
Morris says, "For Vygotsky, the place called school and other informal educational situations represented the best culture laboratories in which to study thinking. He emphasized the social organization of instruction, writing about the unique form of cooperation between the child and the adult as the central element in the educational process. In short, his emphasis on the social context of thinking represented the reorganization of a key social system and associated modes of discourse, with potential consequences for developing new forms of thinking."
Can interactive media do some of the same things? Why or why not?
-- Debra
WARREN WRITES
Debra -- I say absolutely to your final question, and I hope to see more examples of "intelligent design" in children's IM products. One of the first examples I saw that captured the essence of ZPD was JumpStart Kindergarten, released in 1994 from Knowledge Adventure. It was the flagship product of the JumpStart line, and I think one of the reasons the JumpStart series was successful. This original version is still available as "Davidson's Learning Series Kindergarten." Here is a copy of the original '94 review.
"After signing in on a roster posted on the door, children can click on objects in a classroom scene, 13 of which launch activities. A child who can't decide can click on a talking rabbit who suggests an activity the youngster has not yet played. [Design note: so the program is tracking what hasn't been played, and making suggestions to the child via the talking rabbit]. The activities range in quality, content and difficulty level, and cover letters, sorting, numbers, and memory. In Puzzle, children are shown an object and must make a match using concepts such as opposites, shape, size, and color. Another fun activity is Dolls in which children see a line of seven nesting dolls standing from biggest to smallest. The order of the dolls is subsequently mixed and the children must put them back in sequence. Although challenging, testers also enjoyed Pattern Blaster, an arcade-style game in which children sort falling blocks or patterns into the correct bins according to shape or color. Records of children's work are kept and the program remembers progress from day to day. We found a couple of design quirks. For instance, when lining up the set of dolls, the rabbit says "zero dolls are in the right place" when actually some might be in the right place. However, the number of solid activities offered makes this CD-ROM worth its purchase price. Note that more recent versions of the program are available. These cost more but have upgraded activities and design features.
Erik Strommen wrote:
I think this discourse and collaboration is a great idea! Since I started by asking, I will take a first stab at a response.
"If Piaget and Vygotsky are not where the field is anymore, then where it the field?”
The field is immersed in domain-specific models instead. Developmental Psychology no longer has grand theories because research has shown that there are no such things as general mental structures (except perhaps short-term memory). Current models of learning and development all emphasize the opposite: The domain-specificity of knowledge. Learning to read is NOT like learning math, learning about biology is unlike learning about physics, etc. The learning trajectories within domains are distinct, as are the techniques used to teach them. Individual domains are studied in depth to identify their unique characteristics and particular developmental paths.
The discarding of general cognitive structures means discarding the idea of developmental stages, too. If domains each follow their own unique paths, and kids can be at different levels in different domains at the same time, then the idea of a general stage has no meaning. In addition, shifts in ability all appear to be more gradual than Piaget asserted – no dramatic shifts as a theory of stages would predict.
Piaget and Vygotsky’s value today largely comes from their having been RIGHT about the big ideas but WRONG on the details.
Piaget: Children are active participants in their learning
Vygotsky: Social interactions (especially between novice learners and more advanced ones) exert powerful influences on cognitive development.
There!
What do you all think?
*From:* Warren Buckleitner [mailto:warren@childrenssoftware.com]
*Sent:* Sunday, December 16, 2007 4:34 AM
*To:* Erik Strommen
*Cc:* Jim Gray; Debra Lieberman
*Subject:* Re: Developmental Model
Hi Erik (I'm also copying Debra and Jim on this, as they might enjoy this line of discussion).
Not only do I need a tuneup but I could also use an oil change! I'd love to continue this line of thinking with people who have foot in both the developmental theory side, and software development side. Personally I confess that my years at HIgh/Scope shaped my thinking a lot, and obviously Piaget was a major influence there (see my video, below "Jean Piaget Visits the Jersey Shore.") Then at Michigan State Vygotsky was all the rage. I'd disagree that these frameworks are no longer useful. But things morph and there's been a lot of good discourse going on in the developing serious games space. The handout "child development 101 for software developers" has always been a document that I've wanted to further develop. It hasn't changed now for seven years, and Ann, Ellen and I threw it together for the first Dust or Magic institute back in 2000.
THE QUESTION I POSE
"If Piaget and Vygotsky are not where the field is anymore, then where it the field? Debra, Jim, Erik????"
Perhaps if we can develop this as an email it could be something we post on the Wiki and include in the Dust or Magic handout. W
On Dec 15, 2007, at 7:29 PM, Erik Strommen wrote:
Hey Warren,
This is not anything urgent, but if you are interested I would be happy to help you rework your developmental theory. Piaget and Vygotsky are both NOT where the field is anymore. Operational Thinking has no meaning these days. When you described something as Formal Operational during DoM, I thought to myself, /Warren needs a tune-up/.
"If Piaget and Vygotsky are not where the field is anymore, then where it the field?
INTRODUCTION
Terms like "ZPD," "stage theory" and "constructivism," "equilibration," and "social constructivism" get bantered around in discussions of learning and design. It is important to remember that all ideas are subject to interpretation. Think of it like a theoretical yard sale, where people pick through the "stuff" or constructs that form the theoretical framework, taking what they like and leaving what they don't. Anyone who has studied Piagetian scriptures knows that the texts were written in French, and are highly theoretical. For me, the theoretical frameworks provided by folks like Skinner, Piaget and Vygotsky provided a great lens through which to view children in both informal and formal learning settings, but it is important to remember that even these guys pulled their ideas from others. So any theory is always emerging. While I have tried to read a few translated books by Piaget (try "The Grasp of Consciousness" if you a thriller), I am not a Piagetian or Vygotskian scholar by any stretch. If you're a student of human development like me, the best strategy is to (a) learn as much as you can about each of the grand theories, especially Skinner, Piaget, Bruner, Kohlberg, Gardner, and then (b) start child watching to apply the theories to the real world. That's how it all starts to make sense. If you're lucky enough to have your own children or grand children, nothing can compare to the joy of watching them grow, or as Piaget would probably say, develop. In this spirit, let us begin.
THE DISCUSSION
This started at Dust or Magic when I called something "formal operational" to describe the attributes of an interface. Erik Strommen aptly noted "Warren needs a tune-up," a fact that I certainly won't dispute, especially when these theories are applied to today's interactive media. So here's the start of a string of emails between Erik, Debra Leiberman and myself. (note: you might want to start backwards, as the more recent posts listed first).
Hi Warren, Debra, Jim, I think JumpStart Kindergarten (JSK) is a great place to start for this discussion.
ERIK WRITES
Warren - You are right to praise JSK but I feel your reasons are wrong. If you look at JSK's content design, it is all trial-and-error activities (i.e. more Associationism), just with better differential feedback. The learning model is still the same old model that says repeated-trials lead to eventual mastery through practice. The product does not reflect the ZPD or scaffolding. Remember, Vygotsky asserted that the ZPD was a specific point in development. It was the point where a child could (with assistance) succeed on a task at a level higher than they could unaided. Vygotsky's notion was that learning assistance at this point would have an extra effect (i.e. could rapidly lead to new mastery) than assistance rendered when the kid was not in the ZPD.
The assertion of the ZPD was meant to make two points for his theory
1) It was an explicit rejection of the general stage model of Piaget, since if the ZPD was real then task mastery was not ruled by general cognitive structures at all;
2) It was meant to demonstrate the importance of SOCIAL ASSISTANCE by a more experienced learner. (EXAMPLE: A kid can add two single digit numbers (say, 3+7, etc. but with assistance from a more experienced learner can also solve problems such as 3+7+8). The experienced learner "scaffolds" or supports the learner by taking on part of the task (say remembering partial sums.)
Vygotsky's entire model is based on the (wrong) assumption that all consciousness and cognition is shaped by social interactions. We now know that this is incorrect, and that many learning domains actually appear to have innate structures to them that kids seem to be born with, and that contours of their learning in these domains are each unique and domain-specific. Social interventions appear to do little to change these.
As I mentioned before, the research on the ZPD has led to the rejection of the idea itself. There do not appear to be "critical periods" in learning, at least not like a ZPD.
And going back to JSK, the feedback that the tasks give is NOT scaffolding. Scaffolding was theorized to be a dynamic social process, not simply the giving of feedback. (See my example above.) As with the ZPD, research on scaffolding has not yielded anything very useful educationally. The most productive and interesting stuff in this regard comes from the "scaffolding" that occurs in cooperative learning between kids. "Scaffolding" means that the two learners support one another by dividing up the cognitive demands or the learning task and sharing the load (again, see my example).
Jump Start Kindergarten does none of these things. It is a high-quality example of a trial-and-error association learning model. The reason I am harping on this issue is that if we can't discriminate between different learning models ourselves, we end up misrepresenting the learning value of these products - which diminishes not only our credibility but the credibility of claims made for the products.
I feel our industry has for years oversold the learning sophistication of our games in this way, and it hurts the credibility of ALL interactive learning efforts when we ascribe nobler processes than are true to products on the market. We need to start raising our standards and being more accurate about the actual learning models these products use if we want to see the field advance. That is why I urged you to reconsider your learning model and get this thread going. The field of learning is much advanced, and we need to catch up intellectually in order to support improved quality in learning products.
Erik
WARREN WRITES
The only real smart feature that I think JS Kindergarten did for the first time back in '94 was to remember what a child did (keep a history) in previous sessions -- (hence the sign in) -- and suggest activities that were not yet tried. So it really was a rather unsophisticated way of saying "you haven't tried the sorting game yet, how about it?" And the fact that most of the activities provide three challenges that a child can self select or in some cases automatically level make it secondarily noteworthy. Erik is correct in pointing out that there was no social assistance or prescriptive intelligence to the interface . But wouldn't it be amazing if this type of social assistance could be built into a title like Webkinz, or PiratesOnline.com, where live interaction has become commonplace? For example, in Pirates, the crew of a ship has to work together to sink the enemy ship -- one steers, the others man the guns. And experience and competence at both tasks count. I think that social (MMOG) gaming has created entirely new opportunities for social interactions; and now that we can Skype and type at the same time, one person can help another as easily as talking. I mentioned JSK because I feel that it is important to ground this discussion in real examples, rather than abstract notions of what a "serious game" might be, as so often happens in discussions of technology in education. It is easier to know what something is, when you know what it's not.
Erik: bringing the social aspect of the interactive element into the discussion is important. Am I correct that this might be a point in which to talk about Reeves and Nass?
In 1986, Clifford Nass and Byron Reeves conducted a
series of quantitative studies at Stanford's Department of
Communications in which the attributes of human/human and
computer/human interactions were directly associated. Using
both adults and children as a test population, they
recorded the behaviors of their human subjects using
different computer interfaces that varied in complexity and
graphic features. They concluded that humans treat
computers as real people and places, and provided examples
that their subjects were rude or polite to different
interfaces, treated computers with female narration
differently than male-voiced interfaces, and reacted to
large faces on a screen in a way that suggested that the
images could invade a person’s culturally mitigated body
space. They note "the human brain evolved over 200,000
years in a world in which only humans exhibited rich social
behaviors, and a world in which all perceived objects were
real physical objects, and now modern media engages old
brains." Their resulting book "The Media Equation" (See
Reeves and Nass, 1996; Gilbert, 1991) influenced the design
of commercial products such as Microsoft Bob (Microsoft,
1998) and the help wizard found in Microsoft Office, which
takes the form of a humanized talking paper clip. Here's the
"look inside this book " link at Amazon.com.
ERIK WRITES
I sure don't mind this turn in the discussion, but I DO want to get back to the specific problem of learning theory and technology design. 90% of the learning titles on the market today are little more than "electronic work books," based on simple associationism drill/practice learning models that are inconsistent with what research shows about the pattern of children's learning in virtually all content areas.
There, I'm done. :)
Now then,
You asked about a computer doing things human tutors would do in the zpg. My first response is that my understanding is that it has been very hard to pin down exactly what the zpg is. All of children's interactions seem to offer potential, and there don't seem to be "critical moments." It seems like a more continuous process. It is over a period of time that children learn to count, for example, where the child might says "one, two, three...." and the adult chimes in with "..four.." and then the child says "..five, six.." etc. with the parent intervening in a similar way but at different points over time, eventually fading away as the child gets better. This sort of thing is going on all the time, over time.
Zpg aside, there is still a huge amount of research that shows how social interactions influence learning for better or worse. I spent years designing and testing character interfaces for preschoolers and looking at computers and social interactions. I have done research that shows that children respond to interactive characters AS IF they are social agents, and used research about human interaction to guide the design of the characters. That social element provides a unique learning potential because of its motivational appeal. For the ActiMates characters (Barney, Arthur and DW, the Teletubbies) we exploited social conventions and used the character to direct the child's attention to specific content or to participate in onscreen action by singing or repeating along with onscreen characters.
I think we are getting to the point hardware-wise that more sophisticated interactions are technically possible.
Two thing that I can share from my reading in this area as well as my experience:
1) People can't help treating objects socially. People will talk back to a chirping dishwasher or beeping oven, knowing full well it won't answer. My theory is that this is an overextension of social interaction. What I find interesting is that people who talk to their appliances don't really expect them to answer. :)
1) if the goal is a social interaction, the features of the actual interface presented to the user, whether onscreen or hardware, must be very carefully considered. Facial expressions, body posture, tone of voice (if spoken, sentence structure if not), gender, politeness, and a variety of other seemingly neutral factors have surprising motivational effects when embedded in technology interactions.
2) The biggest key to successful interactive character social interactions is a thorough understanding of the interaction itself. What are the "two of you" (the user and the character interface) doing? Understanding the social demands of the specific task and having the character designed to follow the popular script gives a clear structure to the interaction, which is a benefit.
Interesting question!
E
DEBRA LEIBERMAN WRITES
Hi everyone --
Fascinating discussion! Nothing new to add to Erik's analysis of stages, but here are a few related questions.
One of Vygotsky's big ideas that have gained favor in the computer age is the Zone of Proximal Development, "the distance between the actual level of development as determined by independent problem solving [without guided instruction] and the level of potential development as determined by problem solving under adult guidance or in collaboration with more capable peers" http://www.igs.net/~cmorris/zpd.html , http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zone_of_proximal_development . Vygotsky was also interested in the motivation that comes from social interaction. Related theories are cognitive constructivism and social constructivism http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_Constructivism_%28Learning_Theory%29 and situated learning http://tip.psychology.org/theories.html
There is a lot of talk about designing learning software to work within the zone of proximal development, to stimulate learning. Do any of you know examples of software that has been designed that way? One could argue that all leveled software does this to some extent, since it continuously challenges the child to stretch and grow cognitively. It can offer scaffolding if the child is not yet able to solve problems without guidance, and can remove the scaffolding in phases as the child gains cognitive skill. When the child masters a skill, the software then levels up and increases the challenge. With software and games and other forms of human-computer interaction we substitute computer-delivered messages and relationships for human-generated messages and relationships.
In what ways can an interactive mediated character or game or world (just human-computer interaction, with no other people participating) perform the same functions as another person, to encourage the child to solve challenging problems and to provide the assistance the child needs to succeed? Can the software assess the child's cognitive potential and the extent of the zone of proximal development, to provide challenges tailored to the individual child's capabilities? Is the child motivated to strive to learn and rehearse new cognitive skills with software? When (and for which types of children) will the child be more motivated by software than by another person, and vice versa? We see how motivating games can be. We need more research to understand the strengths and weaknesses of software and games as a motivator for problem solving that leads to cognitive development.
Morris says, "For Vygotsky, the place called school and other informal educational situations represented the best culture laboratories in which to study thinking. He emphasized the social organization of instruction, writing about the unique form of cooperation between the child and the adult as the central element in the educational process. In short, his emphasis on the social context of thinking represented the reorganization of a key social system and associated modes of discourse, with potential consequences for developing new forms of thinking."
Can interactive media do some of the same things? Why or why not?
-- Debra
WARREN WRITES
Debra -- I say absolutely to your final question, and I hope to see more examples of "intelligent design" in children's IM products. One of the first examples I saw that captured the essence of ZPD was JumpStart Kindergarten, released in 1994 from Knowledge Adventure. It was the flagship product of the JumpStart line, and I think one of the reasons the JumpStart series was successful. This original version is still available as "Davidson's Learning Series Kindergarten." Here is a copy of the original '94 review.
"After signing in on a roster posted on the door, children can click on objects in a classroom scene, 13 of which launch activities. A child who can't decide can click on a talking rabbit who suggests an activity the youngster has not yet played. [Design note: so the program is tracking what hasn't been played, and making suggestions to the child via the talking rabbit]. The activities range in quality, content and difficulty level, and cover letters, sorting, numbers, and memory. In Puzzle, children are shown an object and must make a match using concepts such as opposites, shape, size, and color. Another fun activity is Dolls in which children see a line of seven nesting dolls standing from biggest to smallest. The order of the dolls is subsequently mixed and the children must put them back in sequence. Although challenging, testers also enjoyed Pattern Blaster, an arcade-style game in which children sort falling blocks or patterns into the correct bins according to shape or color. Records of children's work are kept and the program remembers progress from day to day. We found a couple of design quirks. For instance, when lining up the set of dolls, the rabbit says "zero dolls are in the right place" when actually some might be in the right place. However, the number of solid activities offered makes this CD-ROM worth its purchase price. Note that more recent versions of the program are available. These cost more but have upgraded activities and design features.
Erik Strommen wrote:
I think this discourse and collaboration is a great idea! Since I started by asking, I will take a first stab at a response.
"If Piaget and Vygotsky are not where the field is anymore, then where it the field?”
The field is immersed in domain-specific models instead. Developmental Psychology no longer has grand theories because research has shown that there are no such things as general mental structures (except perhaps short-term memory). Current models of learning and development all emphasize the opposite: The domain-specificity of knowledge. Learning to read is NOT like learning math, learning about biology is unlike learning about physics, etc. The learning trajectories within domains are distinct, as are the techniques used to teach them. Individual domains are studied in depth to identify their unique characteristics and particular developmental paths.
The discarding of general cognitive structures means discarding the idea of developmental stages, too. If domains each follow their own unique paths, and kids can be at different levels in different domains at the same time, then the idea of a general stage has no meaning. In addition, shifts in ability all appear to be more gradual than Piaget asserted – no dramatic shifts as a theory of stages would predict.
Piaget and Vygotsky’s value today largely comes from their having been RIGHT about the big ideas but WRONG on the details.
Piaget: Children are active participants in their learning
Vygotsky: Social interactions (especially between novice learners and more advanced ones) exert powerful influences on cognitive development.
There!
What do you all think?
*From:* Warren Buckleitner [mailto:warren@childrenssoftware.com]
*Sent:* Sunday, December 16, 2007 4:34 AM
*To:* Erik Strommen
*Cc:* Jim Gray; Debra Lieberman
*Subject:* Re: Developmental Model
Hi Erik (I'm also copying Debra and Jim on this, as they might enjoy this line of discussion).
Not only do I need a tuneup but I could also use an oil change! I'd love to continue this line of thinking with people who have foot in both the developmental theory side, and software development side. Personally I confess that my years at HIgh/Scope shaped my thinking a lot, and obviously Piaget was a major influence there (see my video, below "Jean Piaget Visits the Jersey Shore.") Then at Michigan State Vygotsky was all the rage. I'd disagree that these frameworks are no longer useful. But things morph and there's been a lot of good discourse going on in the developing serious games space. The handout "child development 101 for software developers" has always been a document that I've wanted to further develop. It hasn't changed now for seven years, and Ann, Ellen and I threw it together for the first Dust or Magic institute back in 2000.
THE QUESTION I POSE
"If Piaget and Vygotsky are not where the field is anymore, then where it the field? Debra, Jim, Erik????"
Perhaps if we can develop this as an email it could be something we post on the Wiki and include in the Dust or Magic handout. W
On Dec 15, 2007, at 7:29 PM, Erik Strommen wrote:
Hey Warren,
This is not anything urgent, but if you are interested I would be happy to help you rework your developmental theory. Piaget and Vygotsky are both NOT where the field is anymore. Operational Thinking has no meaning these days. When you described something as Formal Operational during DoM, I thought to myself, /Warren needs a tune-up/.